Steps to Embracing the Truth of the Bible

Step 1: Make a commitment of faith

The Archbishop of Canterbury once said that “the longest journey in the life of one’s belief is from the head to the heart.” With your intellect you acknowledge truth but with your heart you appropriate that truth. 

Trusting what the Bible says requires a commitment—not a blind faith but one based on evidence that dispels uncertainty and hesitancy. Apart from it, your faith will surely falter. 

Step 2: Live up to the knowledge that you have. 

Quite often what we do not understand doesn’t bother us nearly as much as what we do understand. Frankly, that’s what growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18) is about. You may not understand everything. Nobody does. But when the Holy Spirit gives you enlightenment as to what He wants you to do, you need the courage to say, “Yes, Lord, yes, I will.”

Step 3: Strive to know the truth that will set you free. 

That’s what Jesus told the disciples (recorded in John 8:32). But the truth is divisive, and the only way you can be sure that your persuasions are right is when you have confidence that the Bible is trustworthy. The harsh reality is that today we are in a cultural and spiritual war that will repeatedly put you, if you are a believer, at odds with our society and force you to swim upstream.

In the midst of sin and depravity—including our own failures—there is the marvelous grace of God that brings forgiveness and allows us to separate ourselves as pilgrims and sojourners from a world that is hostile to truth. 

The key to knowing that God’s Word is truth is a desire to do what God wants you to do. If you really have a desire to know God’s will for your life—if you truly want to do the right thing, God will reveal to you that His Word is true. Jesus promised, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (John 7:17). Strive to obey what you read in the Bible, and you will discern that it is, indeed, a living book.

Step 4: Realize that with obedience comes blessing and with disobedience comes consequences we often dislike. 

Once you settle the issue that the Bible is trustworthy and reliable and the counsel it gives comes from the heart of a loving Father who knows what is best for His children, you then confront the reality that God meant what the writers of Scripture penned long ago. But—and this is important—committing to His will and purpose for your life not only relieves you of a great burden but brings His blessing as well.

Once you realize Jesus Christ did not come to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17), matters embracing the supernatural are no longer stumbling blocks, barricading you from crossing the bridge of confidence to what the Bible says. The questions confronting us are profound but simple:

• Is there a God?

• What kind of a God is He?

• Has He communicated with us expressing His love, His purpose, and His will through the Bible?

This book specifically deals with the last question, and when you answer that in the affirmative, you have discovered what David did long ago, that God’s Word is “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105). And then you will hear a quiet but powerful voice say, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21).

What more can you ask for? 

This is an excerpt from Can You Trust the Bible by Harold Sala, available at OMF Lit Bookshops and our online store, shop.omflit.com for P275.

Can You Trust the Bible?

Outdated. Irrelevant. Contradictory. These are just some of the words skeptics use to describe the Bible. But is there enough evidence to prove that the Bible can be trusted?

Dr. Harold J. Sala presents compelling reasons why you can believe the best-selling book of all time. Drawing from his expertise as a Ph.D holder in English Bible (with proficiencies in Hebrew and Greek) and experience as a lifelong student of the Bible.

Discover the reasons why you can trust the Bible and then decide what the Bible will mean to you personally. Ignore it, trivialize it, deny it or embrace it: Let your heart and mind decide.